I recently went through my coin jar and pulled out a decent amount of copper pennies. I know that currently it is illegal to melt down copper pennies for their base metal but let me ask you this: Is the day when we can melt them down close? And is their a present market for copper pennies? Do people go out of their way to buy '81 and earlier pennies? I will still collect any copper pennies I come across and I hope that some day it pays off.
A lot of people are saving 95% copper pennies now. If you've got time and/or a sorter, what the heck? Go for it! With copper at $4.50/lb there's almost 3 cents worth of copper in every pre-1982 U.S. cent. It adds up but legally melting them is a long ways off I'm afraid.
Here's a thought, I rather put the money into an account where I can gain interest in have them sit at home hoping that one day, I may legally melt them.
I save them, although I don't expect to make a lot of money from it. But the intrinsic value is still quite a bit more than the face value, and I can't bring myself to spend them.
that my 2cent I have never thought copper as bullion but,I do thing any Bu roll from09-1982 is wroth keeping
Currently the value is 2.9 cents each. I save em. Laws change and who knows. Kinda fun looking for them and finding other varietys too.
People are buying copper cents. Go to ebay and search for pennies in the copper bullion section. Lots of sales being made at a premium. Not 2X but still a premium.
Who cares if you can't melt them? If pre-1982 cents get to, say, 10x face, people will trade them like they trade rolls of silver quarters now. Like Ravi says....people are selling them on eBay right now for over face value. I also never understood why people say not being able to melt cents and nickels is a huge negative for those interested in hoarding. The US Government guarantees their composition. Everyone knows, or will know, that pre-1982 cents are 95% copper, nickels are 75% copper and 25% nickel, etc. Why melt them into something unrecognizable? Why wouldn't they trade as bullion...like pre-1965 silver dimes, quarters and half dollars do today?
I save them as well. I seach boxes of cents I see no reason not to pull the copper out. If I'm going thru the trouble of seaching why not?
More so in recent months there are more and more "copper dealers" popping up at local coins shows with copper rounds and bars, and they seem to be doing a pretty good business selling those items. Only problem is, with copper hovering around $4/lb., and these 5 oz. rounds and bars selling for $5 - $10, people are losing their shirts on this deal. MHO, copper will never be worth buying in rounds and bars if the intent is to flip the sale to scrap dealers.
I know copper cents were worth about .03c each for the last couple of years, but I heard the other day that copper tanked. Has anyone heard this news? It was maybe a week ago, heard it while surfing past a financial show on a news channel. Didn't get any details, but the line graph had the value dropping off a cliff.
you can find charts for copper here: http://www.kitcometals.com/charts/copper_historical.html I see that it dropped over the past couple weeks by about 40¢ from its high of $4.60. Not what I would call "dropping off a cliff" but still a decent correction. It is now headed back up again.
I save them, why not! If people would have saved all their silver dimes back in the day when say the melt of the coin was......im just making this up dont know but .20 cents, they would have cashed in. Who knows what could happen with copper. check out how many this guy has accumulated http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Rko0gqXFlo
